


Fostering Codependency

by Cinnamaldeide



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Amnesia, BioShock II, Canon-Typical Violence, Daddy Will, Heavy Angst, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Not Beta Read, Rapture (BioShock), Technically Major Character Death but he survives so it doesn't count, it’s not what you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 05:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15701178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamaldeide/pseuds/Cinnamaldeide
Summary: Big Daddies intimately embodied their behavioural boundaries, unyieldingly connected with their charged Little Sisters. They were in fact so faithful to their safeguarding mission that Hannibal felt compelled to investigate their limits.Written for Reel Hannibal 2018, inspired byBioShock II





	Fostering Codependency

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re unfamiliar with BioShock’s aesthetics, [this trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lngIFXRi4) might introduce you to its sinister atmosphere ⚓  
> Please read the tags carefully, I already traumatized poor [FhimeChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FhimeChan/pseuds/FhimeChan), I wouldn’t want for you to be the next °-°

From his supine position, sight overwhelmed with persistent, blinding light, his chances of assessing his own situation weren’t particularly high.

Struggling to breathe through his restraining mask, which tightly constricted his teeth to grind against one another at the slightest movement, he gradually woke from an unpleasant, restless sleep, unable to properly focus his eyes on those blurry figures surrounding him.

Wrists and ankles firmly secured to the uncomfortable hospital bed on which he currently lay ensured his tactile acuity was likewise compromised. Wrinkled linens brushed his numb fingertips, as his other senses remained quiescent.

Terrifying, he didn’t remember his own name.

“Subject Delta is an auspicious prototype,” an unfamiliar voice explained above his scarcely conscious body. “In our previous attempt to establish an exclusive bond between Big Daddy and Little Sister, we didn’t consider mental illness as an available opportunity to explore,” the female voice explained. “Until recently.”

Thinly disguised pride exuded from her assured tone. “While the Sisters’ initial reticence to approach their protectors has been solved with pheromonal inhibitors, Daddies don’t care for them as a guardian would. Plasmids fail to simulate paternal instincts with efficiency.”

To further increase his abissal confusion, an indistinct, presumably humanly shaped silhouette obscured his rather narrow visual field, incongruous alters raising from its head, before an unknown male voice regardfully inquired, “May I ask what renders this specimen different?”

“An empathy disorder, Doctor Lecter.”

“Quite unique condition,” he commented, apparently fascinated by her answer. His profound, foreign inflection mesmerized and distracted. “It would allow its recipients to develop an authentic attachment without risking to aggravate their typical instability.”

An induced somnolence mercifully muffled his increasing pain, simultaneously exacerbating his significant dizziness. “Protecting his specific Little Sister shall constitute his purpose in life, until death deprive him of his compromised sense of self,” she illustrated. “Delta won’t survive her eventual demise.”

Despite her ostentatious confidence, he feared falling asleep meant never waking up anyway.

 

Contrary to the rest of his kind, Delta learned afterwards, his overwhelming compulsion to remain close to his young charge was addicting and strictly _exclusive_. Delta could believe his very existence was inextricably intertwined with his Little Sister’s, considering her prolonged absence provoked an unbearable, diffuse ache in his altered organism.

Delta couldn’t tell if Abigail felt similarly bond to him, running ahead in her tattered, dirty dress while he relentlessly marched forward in his lead boots, but he strongly suspected his little girl wasn’t worried about losing sight of him.

Walking down opulent, crowded halls and through endless, inexorable corridors, Delta would follow her fleeting reflection on rippling puddles and stained glasses. On the other side of their transparent surfaces, the turquoise lights of Rapture brightened the shoreless ocean floor, whose salted water alarmly leaked from the ceiling.

“Come, Daddy,” Abigail beckoned him, cheerful, “I’ll show you another angel if you hurry, aren’t they beautiful?”

Hearing her light voice reverberating in the otherwise sinister silence, an intense stability pervaded him. Despite the monstrous creature to which Abigail referred as _angels_ , Delta would linger in contemplating her comforting, utterly distorted vision, provided her safeness was guaranteed.

Through the narrow vision of his own diving helmet, Delta would solely glimpse traces of the previous grandeur of a currently decadent society, while colorful ads and propaganda posters gently crumbled on the walls, renmans of Rapture’s deluded aspiration. Between an unsightly necktie and inviting plasmids just introduced to the market, Delta would occasionally read curious commercials as well, such as a certain psychiatrist’s encouragements to _embrace our own nature_.

As charming as this alleged Hannibal Lecter and his seemingly innocuous slogan might have seemed, Delta could effortlessly detect his questionably moral philosophy would lead to unnecessary acts of extreme cruelties.

 

In accordance with his dispassionate predictions, Delta eventually engaged with such latent aggressiveness, to which had been given voice and direction. On that occasion, Delta learned that his heart could literally stop beating at his Little Sister’s partition.

 

It took approximately a decade, and probably something similar to a miracle, for Delta to abandon his comatose status. Without sparing a thought for whomever was responsible of his rebirth, which wasn’t theoretically possible, Delta inferred his beloved girl _had_ survived. Their bond felt strong and insistent, leading towards her as if his life depended on finding her again.

His Little Sister had in the meanwhile grown into a beautiful, dangerous Big Sister, entirely capable of defending herself and posing a serious threat for him as well.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Abigail unhesitantly declared through her fitting armour, paralysing him with a massive electrical charge. In response to her stunning plasmid, Delta heavily dropped to his knees, powerless in front of her merciless violence. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I did what he told me,” she briefly explained, hiding her determination behind the macabre figure of her grimly depicted protector.

Delta knew his absence changed her into such an opportunist creature.

Painfully gasping for air under her unrelenting blows, as Abigail forced him towards an agonizing death, Delta realised that her cruel supervisor might in fact be assisting to his slow demise, instructing her from a safe position. She visibly delighted in his approval.

Abigail hunted him, tormented him, deceived him, while Delta had defended her, grieved for her, strenuously looked for her. Delta would nevertheless welcome death, if his passing meant her survival. There was no chance Delta would ever harm her.

Not until, a hit away from exhaling his last breath, an hypnotizing plasmid clouded his damaged sight and an unplaceable, somehow familiar voice ordered him to stand on his trembling legs in a condescending tone. Against his own exhaustion, Delta complied, incapable of standing against his command.

“He would have died for you, Abigail,” the profound, phlegmatic male voice observed, gently exuding a certain admiration for Delta’s fruitless immolation. “Would you do the same for him?”

Gradually realizing to whom belonged the soave voice which subsequently requested for him to slaughter his precious Sister, Delta closed his tired eyes and prepared for the inevitable worst.

 

Time and experience hadn’t improved his flawed memory, nor his perpetual discomfort at inhabiting an armoured diving suit. At long last, Delta eventually accustomed himself with the stale oxygen in his clothing.

Waking up in a Vita-Chamber, submerged in amniotic fluid to preserve and possibly recover his suboptimal physical condition, Delta breathed in an unhurried lungful of air and knew without doubt that his helmet had been opened.

“Good morning,” a metallic voice crackled in close proximity of his ears. “I hope your sleep was restful. You look less agonized than you did during our first encounter,” it offhandedly added, as a lone figure entered his limited line of sight.

With a little effort, Delta could associate the sharp features barely covered behind the surgical mask with those redundantly printed on faded posters scattered throughout Rapture. So close to his speaker’s face, he was suddenly reminded of his traumatic awakening, alters raising from a blurred silhouette, in that cramped hospital bed. Doctor Lecter hadn’t been alone back then.

“You probably don’t remember me, but I do remember you.” His mild tone resounded in his skull, steady and suave. “Your name is Will Graham, you were a patient of mine, until you’ve been selected to undergo a variety of genetic experiments that would facilitate your transition into an alternative version of Big Daddy codenamed Subject Delta,” he said.

“Differently from the Alpha serie, you were supposed to be the first functioning Big Daddy capable of working without losing your mind,” Doctor Lecter continued, arranging a small tray suspiciously covered in bloodied instrument. “I followed your progress with interest. When you were deemed fit for the field work, I found myself curious about the real limits of your genetically implanted bond, whether you’d die at your Sister’s passing, as expected,” he concluded with satisfaction, “and you did.”

Delta, or _Will_ according to the latest news, remembered fairly well that part too.

Fiddling with needle and syringe, his self-proclaimed mentor kept explaining. “After years of research and trial, I managed to summon you from your lethargy. Abigail survived your separation, so we stuck a bargain,” he clarified. “I’d protect her on your behalf, until you’d meet again, and she consented to offer whatever I required from her to continue my experiments.”

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Abigail hadn’t survived their long-awaited reunion. It also hadn’t escaped his notice that his entertainer obviously enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

“It occurred to me that your instability comes from an unavailable recipient of you care, for which I can provide myself, in absence of your Sister,” Lecter sentenced, as an elusive smirk reached his glistening eyes. “It greatly pleases me seeing you bear so smoothly our newly established bond.”

In a recondite recess of his throat, Delta could feel a scream was scratching to break free. He briefly wondered if the grating transmitter in his helmet would convey his words on the other side of the containing glass. This man had waited a very long time to obtain his security guard in rusted armour.

“I’ve been wondering if your beautiful mind would still offer insightful observations and bold remarks, as it did before your operation,” he commented, seemingly distraught. “Contrary to our peers, I don’t blindly accept the assiom that killing is bad. Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel good.” Lecter steadily placed a yearning hand on the transparent barrier separating them, expression full of tender longing. “You understood this, Will. You always could. You just refused to embrace such an audacious approach.”

Leisurely admiring his own personal Daddy as many would a hard-earned trophy, the content doctor beamed with pride. “You won’t perceive the same discomfort, now that we’re conjoined,” he uttered, delighted.

“It still remains to be seen,” Delta forced his disused vocal cords to croak for the first time in many, many years, “if either of us can survive this codependency you’re fostering.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a bad joke on Daddy Kink and degenerated into something not funny at all. You’ll have to thank my partner for that. If you like my story, you might also like the [photoset](https://cinnamaldeide.tumblr.com/post/177052999984/) I created to go with it, which tonight at midnight decided to _post itself_ before due time (*¯︶¯*) sometimes I really hate Tumblr. I never believed I would write this story, I didn’t even think anyone would be interested in this fantastic videogame, but thanks to [TheSilverQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen) and this amazing initiative I gave myself a chance. I have to say I’m satisfied with the outcome ♥


End file.
